“‘For a drink’ says I, never battin’ an eye.
“‘You’ve come a damn long ways,’ says he.
“‘Sure,’ says I, ‘that’s one reason I’m so dry. Will you liquor, pal?’
“He looked like he needed a drink, all right. He begun loosening his shirt collar.
“‘Thanks, but I ain’t drinkin’, says he. ‘Look here, Shorty, are you loco to come ridin’ into Elkhead this way?’
“‘I’m jest beginnin’ to think maybe I am,’ says I.
“‘Shorty,’ he says in a whisper, ‘they’re beginnin’ to get wise to the whole gang—includin’ me.’
“‘Take a brace,’ says I. ‘They ain’t got a thing on you, Hardy.’
“‘That don’t keep ’em from thinkin’ a hell of a pile,’ says he, ‘an’ I tell you, Shorty, I’m jest about through with the whole works. It ain’t worth it—not if there was a million in it. Everybody is gettin’ wise to Silent, an’ the rest of you. Pretty soon hell’s goin’ to bust loose.’
“‘You’ve been sayin’ that for two years,’ says I.
“He stopped an’ looked at me sort of thoughtful an’ pityin’. Then he steps up close to me an’ whispers in that voice: ‘D’you know who’s on Silent’s trail now? Eh?’
“‘No, an’ I don’t give a damn,’ says I, free an’ careless.
“‘Tex Calder!’ says he.”
Silent started violently, and his hand moved instinctively to his six-gun.
“Did he say Tex Calder?”
“He said no less,” answered Shorty Rhinehart, and waited to see his news take effect. Silent stood with head bowed, scowling.
“Tex Calder’s a fool,” he said at last. “He ought to know better’n to take to my trail.”
“He’s fast with his gun,” suggested Shorty.
“Don’t I know that?” said Silent. “If Alvarez, an’ Bradley, an’ Hunter, an’ God knows how many more could come up out of their graves, they’d tell jest how quick he is with a six-gun. But I’m the one man on the range that’s faster.”
Shorty was eloquently mute.
“I ain’t askin’ you to take my word for it,” said Jim Silent. “Now that he’s after me, I’m glad of it. It had to come some day. The mountains ain’t big enough for both of us to go rangin’ forever. We had to lock horns some day. An’ I say, God help Tex Calder!”
He turned abruptly to the rest of the men.
“Boys, I got somethin’ to tell you that Shorty jest heard. Tex Calder is after us.”
There came a fluent outburst of cursing.
Silent went on: “I know jest how slick Calder is. I’m bettin’ on my draw to be jest the necessary half a hair quicker. He may die shootin’. I don’t lay no bets that I c’n nail him before he gets his iron out of its leather, but I say he’ll be shootin’ blind when he dies. Is there any one takin’ that bet?”
His eyes challenged them one after another. Their glances travelled past Silent as if they were telling over and over to themselves the stories of those many men to whom Tex Calder had played the part of Fate. The leader turned back to Shorty Rhinehart.
“Now tell me what he had to say about the coin.”
“Hardy says the shipment’s delayed. He don’t know how long.”
“How’d it come to be delayed?”
“He figures that Wells Fargo got a hunch that Silent was layin’ for the train that was to carry it.”
“Will he let us know when it does come through?”
“I asked him, an’ he jest hedged. He’s quitting on us cold.”
“I was a fool to send you, Shorty. I’m goin’ myself, an’ if Hardy don’t come through to me—”
He broke off and announced to the rest of his gang that he intended to make the journey to Elkhead. He told Haines, who in such cases usually acted as lieutenant, to take charge of the camp. Then he saddled his roan.
In the very act of pulling up the cinch of his saddle, Silent stopped short, turned, and raised a hand for quiet. The rest were instantly still. Hal Purvis leaned his weazened face towards the ground. In this manner it was sometimes possible to detect far-off sounds which to one erect would be inaudible. In a moment, however, he straightened up, shaking his head.
“What is it?” whispered Haines.
“Shut up,” muttered Silent, and the words were formed by the motion of his lips rather than through any sound. “That damned whistling again.”
Every face changed. At a rustling in a near-by willow, Terry Jordan started and then cursed softly to himself. That broke the spell.
“It’s the whisperin’ of the willows,” said Purvis.
“You lie,” said Silent hoarsely. “I hear the sound growing closer.”
“Barry is dead,” said Haines.
Silent whipped out his revolver—and then shoved it back into the holster.
“Stand by me, boys,” he pleaded. “It’s his ghost come to haunt me! You can’t hear it, because he ain’t come for you.”
They stared at him with a fascinated horror.
“How do you know it’s him?” asked Shorty Rhinehart.
“There ain’t no sound in the whole world like it. It’s a sort of cross between the singing of a bird an’ the wailin’ of the wind. It’s the ghost of Whistlin’ Dan.”
The tall roan raised his head and whinnied softly. It was an unearthly effect—as if the animal heard the sound which was inaudible to all but his master. It changed big Jim Silent into a quavering coward. Here were five practised fighters who feared nothing between heaven and hell, but what could they avail him against a bodiless spirit? The whistling stopped. He breathed again, but only for a moment.
It began again, and this time much louder and nearer. Surely the others must hear it now, or else it was certainly a ghost. The men sat with dilated eyes for an instant, and then Hal Purvis cried, “I heard it, chief! If it’s a ghost, it’s hauntin’ me too!”
Silent cursed loudly in his relief.
“It ain’t a ghost. It’s Whistlin’ Dan himself. An’ Terry Jordan has been carryin’ us lies! What in hell do you mean by it?”
“I ain’t been carryin’ you lies,” said Jordan, hotly. “I told you what I heard. I didn’t never say that there was any one seen his dead body!”
The whistling began to die out. A babble of conjecture and exclamation broke out, but Jim Silent, still sickly white around the mouth, swung up into the saddle.
“That Whistlin’ Dan I’m leavin’ to you, Haines,” he called. “I’ve had his blood onct, an’ if I meet him agin there’s goin’ to be another notch filed into my shootin’ iron.”
CHAPTER X
THE STRENGTH OF WOMEN
He rode swiftly into the dark of the willows, and the lack of noise told that he was picking his way carefully among the bended branches.
“It seems to me,” said Terry Jordan, “which I’m not suggestin’ anything—but it seems to me that the chief was in a considerable hurry to leave the camp.”
“He